Israel believes Syria has retained caches of combat-ready chemical weapons after giving up raw materials used to produce such munitions under pressure from foreign powers, a senior Israeli official said on Thursday. Summarizing Israeli intelligence estimates that were previously not disclosed to avoid undermining the Syrians' surrender of their declared chemical arsenal, the official said they had kept some missile warheads, air-dropped bombs and rocket-propelled grenades primed with toxins like sarin. "There is, to my mind, still in the hands of Syria a significant residual capability ... that could be used in certain circumstances and could be potentially very serious,"...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Syria on Wednesday missed a deadline to hand over all the toxic materials it declared to the world's chemical weapons watchdog, putting the program several weeks behind schedule and jeopardizing a final June 30 deadline.

US President Obama today applauded a deal reached on a United Nations resolution to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, calling it a potentially huge victory for the international community. Obama hailed the resolution and disarmament plans as a "legally binding" and "verifiable" initiative which threatens consequences if Syria did not adhere to conditions. Under a deal reached yesterday, a proposed UN resolution would require Syria to give up its chemical weapons stockpiles and allow inspectors access to all sites. The proposal does not call for force, which would require a second resolution if Syria fails to comply.

The chemical weapons watchdog has been handed "initial disclosure" of Syria's arsenal of poison gas and nerve agents. The Assad regime has given details of its toxic weapons programme to the world's chemical weapons watchdog. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the body tasked with dismantling Syria's stockpile of nerve agents, said that Syria had given an "initial declaration" outlining its programme. It will not release the details of the declaration and is now seeking to verify what has been outlined. OPCW is looking at ways to fast-track moves to secure and destroy Syria's arsenal of poison...

President Obama has formally authorized American shipments to Syria of non-lethal equipment and supplies specifically aimed at countering the threat of Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons as the world waits for them to be neutralized. In a signed order, Obama today waived prohibitions of such shipments by the Arms Export Control Act, determining that the assistance is “essential to the national security interests of the United States.” The materials — including chemical weapons-related personal protective gear and medical supplies — will be sent to “vetted” members of the Syrian opposition, international aid groups inside Syria, and any other organizations working to...

Canada’s foreign minister John Baird is calling Syria’s offer to begin providing information on its chemical arsenal 30 days after it signs an international convention banning such weapons “ridiculous and absurd.” Baird said Syrian President Bashar Assad could not be given extra time. Baird said: “This is a man who up until a week ago denied that they had any such weapons.” …

Syria’s President Bashar Assad on Thursday demanded that Israel ratify international treaties on non-proliferation of nonconventional weapons, and that the US promise not to attack his regime, as he set conditions for a negotiated resolution of the crisis over his chemical weapon. Assad said he would submit data on his country’s chemical weapons stockpile a month after signing an international convention banning the arms, adding that it was Russia, and not the US, that was making a negotiated solution possible. His comments were believed to mark Assad’s first formal acknowledgement that he has chemical weapons. Calling a month wait the...

Few people depress me these days like Michael Doran. A Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, Doran has been a leading advocate among thoughtful foreign policy analysts for a more aggressive U.S. intervention to end the conflict in Syria. Agree or disagree with that policy (I’m not sure I do, personally), it’s left him especially skeptical of the Obama administration’s push for limited strikes against Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons. When Russia seized on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s offhand suggestion that Syria could avoid U.S. strikes by giving up its chemical weapons, I reacted,...

A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime's chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials. The movements of chemical weapons by Syria's elite Unit 450 could complicate any U.S. bombing campaign in Syria over its alleged chemical attacks, officials said. [....] The unit is in charge of mixing and deploying chemical munitions, and it provides security at chemical sites, according to U.S. and European intelligence agencies. It is composed...

An elite Syrian unit that runs the government's chemical arms program has been scattering the weapons to dozens of sites across the country, potentially complicating US plans for air strikes, the Wall Street Journal reported. The newspaper, citing unnamed US officials and lawmakers briefed on the intelligence, said on its website on Thursday that a secretive military group known as Unit 450 had been moving the stocks around for months to help avoid detection of the weapons. US and Israeli intelligence agencies and Middle Eastern officials still believe they know the location of most of the government's chemical weapons supply,...

An Italian journalist and Belgian writer who had been held captive in Syria for the past six months were released this past Sunday. Domenico Quirico says he overheard a conversation held on Skype by his captors. The captors claimed that the recent chemical attack in Syria was orchestrated by the rebels to draw Western countries into the fight against the Assad regime.

The head of the opposition Free Syria Army, General Salim Idriss, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that he has intelligence that the Assad regime is moving its chemical weapons out of the country. “Today we have information that the regime began to move chemical materials and chemical weapons to Lebanon and to Iraq,” General Idriss told Amanpour from inside Syria. It’s a huge claim that would fundamentally shift everything U.S. intelligence officials have in the past said they believe about the situation in Syria, CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr reports.

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syria's top rebel commander called Thursday for regime officials to be put on trial for carrying out an alleged chemical attack near Damascus that killed hundreds last month, blasting a Russian proposal for securing the country's chemical arsenal.

Britain issued a further five licences over the past decade for the export to Syria of so-called "dual use" chemicals, which can be used in the manufacture of weapons, it emerged on Wednesday. However, Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, said that all of the licences predate the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in early 2011, and said he was "confident" that the exports were for legitimate commercial purposes. Mr Cable has come under fire in recent days over two licences granted in January 2012 for the export of sodium fluoride and potassium fluoride to Syria. The licences were revoked...

Finding and securing Syria's chemical weapons stockpile amid a bloody civil war will be a daunting and lengthy task that will make bringing some of the world's most contentious regimes to the negotiating table look easy, experts say. Thousands of tons of deadly weapons are spread throughout Syria, hidden in underground bunkers, secured in clandestine government facilities and constantly being moved, according an unclassified CIA report. "Nothing about this will be easy," said Gwyn Wifiled, editor of CBRNe World and an expert on weapons of mass destruction. "The inspectors will effectively become a third player in the conflict. It will...

(CNN) -- As a Russian proposal to strip Syria of its chemical weapons began to take shape, the White House eased off the gas Tuesday in its drive for congressional approval to strike the Middle Eastern country. But proving that nothing will come easy in resolving the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it deemed as "unacceptable" a French proposal -- also backed by some U.S. lawmakers -- asking the United Nations Security Council to declare Syria responsible for an August 21 chemical attack that U.S. official says killed more than 1,400 people. According to Syrian...

MOSCOW (AP) — In a surprise move, Russia promised Monday to push its ally Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control and then dismantle them quickly to avert U.S. strikes. The announcement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came a few hours after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that Syrian President Bashar Assad could resolve the crisis surrounding the alleged use of chemical weapons by his forces by surrendering control of "every single bit" of his arsenal to the international community by the end of the week.

Was the Bush administration right all along? Could these indeed be the very same WMDs that intelligence agencies from around the world claimed were in Hussein’s possession which he then transferred over to Syria? The earliest account of Hussein having hidden his WMDs in Syria came in January of 2004. Nizar Nayouf, an award-winning Syrian journalist who was granted political asylum in France, said in a letter to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf not only that he knew Iraq’s WMDs were being hidden inside Syria, but that he could pinpoint precisely where they were being kept. According to Nayouf’s witness, described...

Secretary of State John Kerry was making a rhetorical comment when he said on Monday that Syria's President Bashar al-Assad would not hand over his country's chemical weapons. "Secretary Kerry was making a rhetorical argument about the impossibility and unlikelihood of Assad turning over chemical weapons he has denied he used," a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. "His (Kerry's) point was that this brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts cannot be trusted to turn over chemical weapons, otherwise he would have done so long ago. That's why the world...

British companies sold chemicals to Syria that could have been used to produce the deadly nerve agent that killed 1,400 people, The Mail on Sunday can reveal today. Between July 2004 and May 2010 the Government issued five export licences to two companies, allowing them to sell Syria sodium fluoride, which is used to make sarin. The Government last night admitted for the first time that the chemical was delivered to Syria – a clear breach of international protocol on the trade of dangerous substances that has been condemned as ‘grossly irresponsible’. The sales were made at a time when...

By MarketWatch WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Syrian forces have used gas against the Qabun neighborhood of Damascus, Al-Arabiya is reporting citing activists, according to a Bloomberg News report of what the station said.

During a hearing in front of the House Foreign Relations Committee Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry suggested the United States would eventually need to put boots on the ground in Syria in order to secure stockpiles of chemical weapons. When pressed on the issue, Kerry quickly walked back the troops on the ground option and stated he was simply "thinking out loud" when he made the statement. A resolution passed by the Senate Armed Service Committee yesterday, leaving wiggle room for troops to be eventually placed on the ground in Syria. Now, the Daily Mail is reporting the Pentagon...

U.N. experts investigating a poison gas attack in Syria left the country on Saturday, paving the way for the United States to lead military strikes to punish President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States, which has five cruise-missile equipped destroyers in the region, was planning "limited, narrow" military action to punish Assad for an attack that Washington said killed 1,429 people. "We cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale," Obama said on Friday after Washington unveiled an intelligence assessment concluding Assad's forces were to blame for...

Prime Minister David Cameron told British lawmakers Thursday that there is "no 100 percent certainty about who is responsible" for the apparent mass-chemical weapons attack on suburban Damascus on Aug. 21. Nevertheless, Cameron asserted that "from all the evidence we have," his government, along with the Obama administration, had made the "judgment" that "the regime is responsible and should be held to account." Also just like the Obama administration, however, Cameron's government has yet to explain exactly what the evidence of Assad's culpability is, or where it came from.

Daily Record = September 1, 2013 FURIOUS politicians have demanded Prime Minister David Cameron explain why chemical export licences were granted to firms last January. BRITAIN allowed firms to sell chemicals to Syria capable of being used to make nerve gas. Export licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride were granted 10 months after the bloody civil war in the Middle East began. Yesterday, politicians and anti-arms trade campaigners urged Prime Minister David Cameron to explain why the licences were granted. Dunfermline and West Fife Labour MP Thomas Docherty, who sits on the House of Commons’ Committees on Arms Export...

Syrians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta say Saudi Arabia provided chemical weapons for an Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group which they blame for the August 21 chemical attack in the region, a Mint Press News report says. The article co-authored by a veteran AP reporter, said interviews with doctors, residents, anti-government forces and their families in Ghouta suggest the terrorists in question received chemical weapons via Saudi spymaster Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud. The report quoted the father of a militant as saying that his son and 12 others were killed inside a tunnel used...

Below is the government's assessment of the "Syrian Government’s Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, 2013." It is exactly as expected, putting the full blame on Assad. What however is absolutely mindblowing is the following: "We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible...

As we showed mere days ago, it appears the truth of who the real puppet-master in the Middle-East is becoming plainer to see. The incredibly frank discussion between Saudi's spy-chief Prince Bandar and Russia's Putin exposed a much deeper plot is afoot and the following details from the actual people on the ground in the chemically-attacked region of Syria suggest Obama is playing right into the Saudi's plan. While Obama is 'certain' that the chemical attacks took place on al-Assad's orders, as MPN reports, "from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges....

WASHINGTON — President Obama is prepared to move ahead with a limited military strike on Syria, administration officials said on Thursday, even with a rejection of such action by Britain’s Parliament, an increasingly restive Congress, and lacking an endorsement from the United Nations Security Council. Although the officials cautioned that Mr. Obama had not made a final decision, all indications suggest that the strike could occur as soon as United Nations inspectors, who are investigating the Aug. 21 attack that killed hundreds of Syrians, leave the country. They are scheduled to depart Damascus, the capital, on Saturday. The White House...

The Obama administration has selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes on Syria, former military officers with access to the original intelligence reports say, in a manner that goes far beyond what critics charged the Bush administration of doing in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel’s famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.The doctored report was leaked...

Barack Obama's plans for air strikes against Syria were thrown into disarray on Thursday night after the British parliament unexpectedly rejected a motion designed to pave the way to authorising the UK's participation in military action.

A week after accusing Israel of giving Al-Qaeda chemical weapons to use against civilians in Syria, British MP George Galloway was caught lying about his remarks during a debate in Parliament. … On Thursday, during a debate in the British Parliament on whether to take part in a military offensive against Syria, Galloway was challenged by Matthew Offord, a representative of Hendon in North London. Offord said he had received several e-mails from constituents on Galloway’s hateful remarks, then said, “I would find that very hard to believe that the honorable member said that, so would he like to take...

President François Hollande of France on Friday offered strong support for international military action against the Syrian government, supporting the Obama administration just a day after the British Parliament rejected Minister Prime David Cameron’s call for intervention.

[video] On CNN's The Lead, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) explains his opposition to U.S. military intervention in Syria's civil war: "It's not even clear it was a chemical attack. If it was a chemical attack, then the residue left on the clothing of victims would have poisoned other people. That hasn't happened."

The Obama administration has selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes on Syria, former military officers with access to the original intelligence reports say, in a manner that goes far beyond what critics charged the Bush administration of doing in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war. According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel’s famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report. The doctored report...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Obama Crosses â€˜Red Lineâ€™ by Supporting Jihadi TerrorismPosted By Raymond Ibrahim On August 29, 2013 @ 12:21 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 4 Comments By now it should be obvious that whenever the U.S. interferes in another nationÂ’s politics in the name of Â“human rights,Â” that that is only a pretext. So it is in Syria, as Obama prepares to plunge America in a war with that nation, and, inevitably, its allies. The United StatesÂ’ stated reason for intervention, as articulated by John Kerry, is that Syrian President Assad used chemical weapons on the...

As the first drops of a cool afternoon rain begin to fall from the sky, the administration that has been described as the most ruthlessly zealous in pursuit of whistleblowers is showering down its own rain of leaks about the upcoming attack on Syria. Stand outside the New York Times building with a bucket in one hand and a thick wad of wood pulp in the other, and you may even be able to figure out whether we’re going to war or, as one official told the Los Angeles Times, the air strikes will be “just muscular enough not to...

The U.S. could hit Syria with three days of missile strikes, perhaps beginning Thursday, in an attack meant more to send a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad than to topple him or cripple his military, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Tuesday. -snip- But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., an influential voice on military matters, pressed the administration to go further, calling for the U.S. and its allies to provide weapons to "the resistance on the ground." "The important part of this whole situation is, is this just going to be just a retaliatory strike that has no lasting...

As the U.S. reportedly weighs striking Syria, Sen. John McCain blasts the president and his top military officer for being too soft on previous allegations of chemical attacks. In an interview during a diplomatic trip to South Korea, Sen. John McCain—one of the administration’s fiercest critics on Syria policy—said that recent statements by [Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin] Dempsey signaled to Assad that he could escalate his use of chemical weapons against his own population without significant international consequences. “General Dempsey has to be embarrassed,” McCain said about Dempsey’s letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking Democrat Elliott Engel (D–New...

Thousands of sick and dying Syrians had flooded the hospitals in the Damascus suburbs before dawn, hours after the first rockets landed, their bodies convulsing and mouths foaming. Their vision was blurry and many could not breathe. Overwhelmed doctors worked frantically, jabbing their patients with injections of their only antidote, atropine, hoping to beat back the assault on the nervous system waged by suspected chemical agents. In just a few hours, as the patients poured in, the atropine ran out. To avoid contamination, medics stripped new arrivals down to their underwear and doused them with water before taking them inside....

Obama has retreated time and time again, in the face of clear and present danger from mullahs who preach martyrdom with nukes and long-range missiles. They threaten not just Israel, but the Arab oil regimes that have been Iran's deadly enemy for a thousand years. When Obama pushed over Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt, the pillar of peace in the Middle East, the mullahs saw their chance to forge a Shi'ite Crescent between Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, all controlled by Tehran. The purpose is to surround Israel with thousands of modern missiles armed with chemical and possibly nuclear weapons. It...

There is no evidence that the Syrian government ordered the massacre with chemical weapons, but the West will blame it anyway because they want war, investigative journalist Neil Clark told RT. RT: As we can see the US, Britain, France and Turkey are all waiting on options in Syria. How ready are they to move from words to action at this point? Neil Clark: They are really bent on war and whatever the UN inspectors do this week won’t matter because it is a replay of 2003 when Saddam Hussein was bullied into allowing weapons inspection teams into Iraq. They...

Contrary evidence arises as U.S. considers punishing Assad regime... NEW YORK – As the U.S. considers a response to what it calls a chemical weapon attack by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime that killed hundreds of civilians, reliable Middle Eastern sources say they have evidence the culprits actually were the rebel forces trying to take over the government. Secretary of State John Kerry accused the Assad government Monday of covering up the use of chemical weapons in “a cowardly crime” and a “moral obscenity” that shocked the world’s conscience. Kerry claimed the Obama administration had “undeniable” evidence “that the Assad government...

Boehner: "The president has an obligation to the American people to explain the rationale for the course of action he chooses."WASHINGTON — Backed up against a wall after nudging the Syrian red line as far as he could reasonably push it, President Obama responded to calls to make a case for action against the Assad regime by today sending out Secretary of State John Kerry. That Kerry’s message was the main administration narrative was underscored by a weak press conference at the White House after the State Department statement, where Kerry took no questions from the media. “What we saw...

Warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain's Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast, in a sign of increasing preparations for a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria. Two commercial pilots who regularly fly from Larnaca on Monday told the Guardian that they had seen C-130 transport planes from their cockpit windows as well as small formations of fighter jets on their radar screens, which they believe had flown from Europe. Residents near the British airfield, a sovereign base since 1960, also say activity there has been much higher than normal...

UK and US military chiefs are drawing up a list of targets for precision-guided bombs and missiles to strike at the heart of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. Defence correspondent Ian Drury looks at the options. WHAT TARGETS WOULD THE COALITION HIT? The favoured option among top brass is for limited Western action using ‘stand-off’ weapons from long distance to disrupt Assad’s ability to carry out chemical attacks and damage his military machine. Intelligence on targets would come from pilotless drones patrolling the skies above Syria and special forces on the ground.

Israeli intelligence can tie the recent gas attack against the Syrian rebels to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the German publication Focus reports. U.S. Naval War College Professor John Schindler tweeted the story, adding that Israel shared the information with the U.S. and other allies.

After the most recent use of chemical weapons in Syria, President Obama is sheltering his next moves even from his closest advisers as the whole Obama administration inches painfully toward what they all see as the moment of truth in Syria. Once again, he could walk away from the use of force because that option has little backing either in his administration or among Americans generally. But after an endless run of inter-agency meetings at the White House, the sense is that he is nearing three conclusions: first, the Syrian government has put his credibility on the line irrevocably and...